If you store timber, pipe, tube, steel bar, plasterboard or sheet material, you are not really shopping for "racking" — you are shopping for a rack that suits the shape and weight of one specific material. This guide covers what KC Supply actually holds for long and awkward loads, what each rack carries per arm, and the two facts that decide most of these purchases: load capacity per arm and whether the material lies down or stands up.
First, a warning about the phrase "pipe racking"
Searching for pipe racking returns at least four different products, and only two of them are the sort of thing sold from a catalogue. It is worth knowing which one you want before you compare prices:
- Static racks for pipe, tube and bar — the fixed steel racks covered on this page. This is what most UK buyers mean.
- Mobile pipe racks and pipe trolleys — wheeled units for moving lengths around a site. A large share of the results are plant hire firms rather than sellers, because on a fixed-duration project hiring is often the right call. We hold two mobile options and they are named below, but we do not hire.
- Process pipe racks — the structural steel frameworks that carry process piping across a refinery or chemical plant. That is a structural engineering package, not a purchase, and no catalogue rack will do it.
- Tobacco pipe racks — a genuinely common search that has wandered into an industrial results page.
If you are in the second or third group, this page will not help and it is better to say so now.
The single most useful number: load capacity per arm
Every long-load rack is really a set of cantilevered arms, and the arm rating is what limits you. Across the racks KC Supply holds, that number varies by a factor of twelve — and, counter-intuitively, the products called "cantilever racking" are not the strongest ones.
| Rack | Rated capacity | From |
|---|---|---|
| GPC Cantilever Racking (adjustable arms) | 250 kg per arm | £1,290.00 |
| GPC Cantilever Racking — parallel arms | 200 kg per arm | £1,917.00 |
| GPC Cantilever Racking — tapered arms | 200 kg per arm | £2,094.12 |
| GPC Heavy Duty Bar Storage Racks | 500 kg per arm | £1,340.04 |
| GPC Heavy Duty Bar CUBI-Rack | 3,000 kg per column | £1,648.74 |
Read that table before you read anything else. A bar storage rack carries twice as much per arm as a cantilever rack, and costs less than the parallel-arm cantilever unit. If your stock is steel bar, hollow section, angle or channel, the rack with "cantilever" in the name is the weaker and dearer choice. Cantilever earns its keep on length and reach — long timber, tube and profile that needs a deep open face — not on raw tonnage.
Two cautions on using any of these figures. First, the ratings are per arm, so a bay's usable capacity depends on how the load spreads across arms — a 6 m length resting on three arms is not the same as the same weight concentrated on one. Second, every one of these racks carries the instruction to load heavy materials at the base. Top-heavy loading is the most common way a correctly specified rack becomes an unsafe one.
Horizontal or vertical? This decides more than the brand does
Long material can be stored lying down on arms, or standing up in compartments. They are different products with different failure modes.
Horizontal — cantilever and bar racks. Material lies on arms projecting from an upright, with an open front and no obstructions. Best for anything long, heavy or awkward to lift upright: timber lengths, steel sections, tube, guttering, profiles. It needs floor area and, in practice, a forklift.
Vertical — vertical storage racks and sheet racks. Material stands on end in divided sections. Best where lengths are manageable by hand, floor space is tight, and pickers need to see and grab a single length without disturbing the rest. The GPC Vertical Storage Rack (£1,299.72) has 250 mm between support bars, fully welded construction, and is pre-drilled for bolting to the floor — which matters, because a tall rack of upright steel is a tipping risk until it is fixed. It comes as 6-section and 8-section units and as starter and extension bays, so a run can be grown along a wall rather than bought in one go.
The trade-off is honest and rarely stated: vertical storage is far kinder on floor space and far worse for anything a person cannot comfortably stand up on their own.
Sheet and board material
Plywood, plasterboard, MDF and sheet metal are their own problem — heavy, floppy, easily damaged at the edges, and dangerous to handle badly. Three options here:
- GPC Premium Vertical Sheet Rack — from £1,282.92, available as a full rack or a 3-section unit.
- GPC Mobile Vertical Sheet Rack — £1,313.94, for workshops where the sheet needs to come to the saw rather than the other way round.
- GPC Sheet Racking — from £1,883.46, fully welded with intermediate floor bracing to support the sheet material, in 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10-bay configurations. That bracing is the detail worth paying for: unsupported sheet bows across its own length and bowed board is scrap.
Bay count is the decision here, and it scales cleanly — buy the run you need now plus the bays you will need within the year, because matching a part-used rack later is more trouble than the saving.
Steel bar, hollow section, angle and channel
Bar stock is dense, and density is what breaks racks. The GPC Heavy Duty Bar Storage Racks (from £1,340.04) run 500 kg per arm with 250 mm between arms, in 5-tier and 6-tier double-sided configurations, and can be drilled to fix to the floor for stability. For serious tonnage the Heavy Duty Bar CUBI-Rack (from £1,648.74) is rated at 3,000 kg per column, with fully welded columns and bolted braces and spacing angles, available from 2 up to 8 columns.
The 250 mm arm spacing is worth checking against your own stock before ordering. It is generous for bar and tube; it is not a lot if you are trying to separate a dozen different profiles by type, and the answer to that is usually more tiers rather than fuller ones.
If the material has to move: two mobile options, and an honest word about hire
The GPC Heavy Duty Mobile Bar Storage Rack (from £1,666.08) has 3 tiers, 330 mm between arms, four 200 mm heavy-duty swivel castors of which two are braked, a folded height of 630 mm and an overall size of 1600 × 1100 × 1560 mm. The folded height is the interesting figure — it is what lets an unused rack go flat against a wall instead of occupying a bay. The Mobile Vertical Sheet Rack (£1,313.94) does the same job for board.
If you need pipe racks for a fixed-duration project rather than a permanent store, a significant part of this market is hire, and hire is frequently the right answer. We sell; we do not hire. Saying so is faster than letting you work it out at the checkout. For the wider static-versus-mobile decision, see our guide to when to put storage on castors.
Three practical details that catch people out
- A forklift is needed to unload these units. This is stated explicitly on almost every rack in the range. They arrive as heavy welded steel assemblies. If there is no forklift on site on delivery day, the rack does not come off the lorry.
- Floor fixings are not supplied. The vertical racks arrive pre-drilled for bolting down and the cantilever frames have wall and floor fixing points, but the bolts are a separate order and the right anchor depends on your slab. Ask your installer before delivery, not after.
- Arms adjust in steps, not continuously. The GPC cantilever arms are height-adjustable in 150 mm increments and fitted with removable end stops. So a bay's usable levels are a whole number of 150 mm steps — worth checking against your tallest bundle before you assume a five-level layout fits.
Configured systems, and why we will not quote a price for one
Alongside the catalogue racks we list the STOW Cantilever Racking System — a modular long-goods system with adjustable arms across a range of arm lengths and load capacities, expandable and reconfigurable. It carries no headline price, deliberately: it is specified per installation, and any single figure quoted for a modular system is the price of one particular configuration of it rather than the price of the system. We will price it against your drawing. Treat a competitor's headline number for configured racking the same way.
Choosing in five steps
- Weigh a typical bundle. Then compare against the per-arm rating, not the per-bay marketing figure.
- Decide horizontal or vertical. Can one person stand a length up safely? If not, it lies down.
- Match the rack to the material, not the name. Bar and section: bar racks. Long timber, tube and profile: cantilever. Sheet and board: sheet racking with intermediate bracing.
- Check arm or divider spacing against your stock profile. 250 mm and 330 mm are the two figures in this range.
- Confirm forklift access and floor fixings before the delivery date. These two account for most of the problems on the day.
Where to go next
Browse the long load storage range for vertical, bar and sheet racks, or the cantilever racking collection. For the components of a cantilever system — uprights, bases, arms, starter and extension bays and how load ratings are derived — see the cantilever racking buying guide. To decide between cantilever and conventional pallet racking, read cantilever racking vs pallet racking, and for the full picture across systems, warehouse racking types explained. Everything above is manufactured by GPC Industries unless stated; for shelved rather than long-load storage see racking and shelving and heavy duty shelving.